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Friday, May 18, 2012

Last Week in TV #32

Though most every show wrapped up its season this week (if it hadn't already), we're still mostly playing catch-up, so we'll have at least a few more "Last Week in TV" posts before my summer TV blogging hiatus sets in, to finish up the second season of Game of Thrones and continue with the late coverage of other shows. So I'll get to things like the HIMYM and Once Upon a Time finales (and Alcatraz, and Glee, and...) in the next few posts (I am also current on all the Fox animated shows; I just didn't have the time to write or much to say about Bob's Burgers (the best show of the night), Family Guy (the Tea Party episode was pretty funny) or American Dad (ol' reliable) this week. But feel free to sound off on them in the comments if you're so inclined).

The Simpsons: The Spy Who Learned Me

At this point, episodes where Homer is an ass than resolves to become a better person constitute a pretty large subsection of Simpsons episode, so whatever enjoyment there is to be had from them is going to depend on the execution. This one largely worked, thanks, for the most part, to Stradivarius Cain, voiced by Bryan Cranston, one of those great original Simpsons characters (like McBain) that parody a specific pop culture character. Cain's various pseudo-James Bondisms helped inject some fun into an otherwise basic plot, and I wouldn't mind having the character show up again in some capacity.
The B-plot, involving Bart using fast food to get back at Nelson, was pretty slight (and contained another outdated reference, this time to Super Size Me), but was an interesting example of how continuity works on The Simpsons. On the one hand, you have Bart getting bullied by Nelson, despite the two being friends in several episodes, because Nelson's default state is to be the bully. But at the same time, you have scenes between Lisa and Nelson that play off the unique relationship the two have developed since "My Date with Density". I'm not making any value judgements regarding the show's approach to continuity, just pointing another example of how the writers tend to pick and choose what continuity sticks and what resets each week.

Ned 'N' Edna's Blend

Speaking of Simpsons continuity, this was one of the show's rare "continuity changing" episodes, as the whole "vote on whether Flanders and Mrs. Krabappel get together" fiasco from last season's finale is taken to the next level and we learn the two characters have gotten married. This is the kind of change (like Maude's death or Lisa's vegetarianism) that the writers aren't afraid to occasionally make and then stick with. In the grand scheme of things, I could really care less about "Nedna", but the reveal of their marriage and the ensuing struggle to integrate Mrs. Krabappel into the Flanders' family made for a surprisingly straightforward and well-crafted episode (there really was no B plot to this one at all, and it featured a plot that would have been right at home in a more traditional sitcom).

Toss in some easy-but-funny jabs at organized religion along the way, a case of the Simpsons setting a good example for once and little surprise depth to Mrs. Krabappel, and you get a pretty decent episode.

Homer: Why do I succeed in everything I audition for?!?

Moe: There it is. Another story in the classic three-act structure. Good enough for Aristotle, good enough for the Simpsons.

Flanders: Pause the assembly! I have to talk to my wife. Mrs. Krabappel: Ned! Principal Skinner: My rival...Superintendent Chalmers: Some rivalry. It's like Secretariat vs. a can of dog food.

Game of Thrones: The Old Gods and the New

Two episodes to cover, so let's dive right in!

Winterfell
The show wastes no time in having Theon capture Winterfell. What a dick. Yes, he's clearly posturing, and in way over his head (I particularly loved how initially nonchalant Bran was as Theon marched into his bedroom), but any hope for some kind of "appease his father/look out for Winterfell" double act went out the window the moment he (eventually) cut off (sorta) Ser Roderick's head. He may think he's not yet burning any bridges, but there's no way he can come back from this. I just hope Robb is gearing up for a monumental ass kicking.

North of the Wall
Another strong Nights Watch segment, undercut somewhat by the plot contrivance of the grizzled Rangers leaving the rookie Jon alone to execute Ygritte just so she can inevitably try to escape. I can buy both Jon's greenness and the fact that he'd be befuddled by Ygritte, but getting to that point that those two things can combine to allow for Ygritte to escape and lead Jon astray seemed overly-contrived (I'm curious if the book handled it the same way).

Harrenhal
Arya has to waste another of her kill wishes, this time out of necessity. While the idea of her having to use one of them to help her out of a jam instead of in vengeance is a good one, the circumstances again felt contrived, as it seemed out of character for the usually-whip smart Arya to be walking around with the stolen scroll visible. Earlier, her attempts to avoid Baelish during his conversation with Tywin managed to be both tense and kind of amusing. I especially appreciated that it was left open as to whether or not Baelish recognized her.

Robb's Camp
Robb flirts some more, Caetlyn returns and reminds him there's no time for love when you're a king. Then they learn about Theon and Winterfell and Robb has to resist the urge to go bitchslap him himself. That's about all.

Qarth
So Dany's dragons are stolen, and the most surprising thing about it is that it took this long. I mean, they weren't exactly locked up or well-protected. Other than that, we got more of the same from Dany. While I find her one of the show's more compelling characters, her story arc seems the most in danger of getting stuck in a rut. She's already disconnected from everything else going on in Westeros; narrative wheel-spinning is the worst thing that could happen to her.

King's Landing
So the shit hit the, er, erstwhile king's face, and if it wasn't for the attempted rape of Sansa (which was almost more horrific then Joffrey threatening her with a crossbow) this would have been the most fun scene of the episode. It was great seeing Joffrey get shit-faced (*rimshot*), it was great watching him realize that barking orders at an unruly mob doesn't accomplish much whether you're a king or not, and it was great watching Tyrion whack him across the face.

Other Thoughts
The Hound's continued affection for Sansa remains nice to see. I hope it's not going anywhere...icky.

Apparently the people living North of the Wall are from Ireland.

How great are the Tywin/Arya scenes?

A Man Without Honor

This was a relatively action-less episode, yet it was probably one of the most tense of the season, as everyone watches their best laid plans start to unravel.

Winterfell
Let's just get this out of the way: those had better not be the charred bodies on Bran and Rickon. I'm fairly certain it's not, for a variety of reasons, but either way, it doesn't paint Theon in a very favorable light. And now he's started down a slippery slope, in which any hope of keeping things civil in Winterfell is rapidly diminishing as he fights to hang onto it. Making everyone think he killed the boys was necessary to keep his own troops following him, but now he's drawn an even bigger target on his back for everyone outside of Winterfell. I no longer want Robb to come kick his ass; now I want Bran to do it.

North of the Wall
That went about as expected. Probably should have taken Ygritte up on her offer while you had the chance, Jon, considering you were walking into a trap anyways.

Harrenhal
Another strong scene between Arya and Tywin. I particularly like the continued revelations that Tywin can see through some of Arya's lies (though not through them all, presumably). That he knows she's lying but doesn't yet care says a lot about his character. Meanwhile, I loved that Jaqen was not only skilled enough to kill that dude before he could tattle on Arya, but could do it in a way that framed the Brotherhood (though I wonder if Arya will ever learn of the suffering she's responsible for by inadvertently letting the Mountain loose on the countryside?).

Qarth
The plot closest to stagnation gets a little life injected in it, as Xaro stands revealed as the Stealer of Dragons and teams up with Warlock Dean Pelton (credit to Dan Feinberg for that one) to take control of the city. It still doesn't give Daenrys herself much to do, and gets her no closer to Westeros or the main action, but things are moving along, and it was good that the whole "who stole the dragons?" mystery didn't get drawn out.

King's Landing
A trio of great scenes here. First, Shae threatens another handmaiden in a futile effort to keep Sansa's...burgeoning womanhood...a secret, which, I suspect, will be the event which proves Shae's undoing and reveals her (and ultimately Tyrion's affection for her) to Cersei. Then Cersei gives Sansa some advice about being a queen and focusing on your children, and manages to not be a bitch about it. Finally, Cersei and Tyrion share perhaps the best scene of the episode together, as Cersei more or less admits that Joffrey is a monster and Tyrion clearly feels bad for her despite their differences. Both the Cersei scenes did a lot to further add some dimension to her character.

Robb's Camp
Robb is off running errands with the flirtatious nurse, much to the consternation of some of his banner men, but Jaime makes his triumphant return. It became pretty clear pretty fast that Jaime was going to kill his poor sap of a cousin, but the preceding conversation shed a lot of light on Jaimie. After being one of the central characters early in season one, he's sat out most of this season, but the his two scenes in this episode managed to give him a season's worth of development. I still don't like him, but I'm intrigued to see what happens to him next.

Other Thoughts
Jaimie's line to Caetlyn about how contradictory his various oaths are was a fantastic bit of characterization, and really, a nice summation of one of the show's themes.

After he was recaptured, do we think Jaime was goading Caetlyn into killing
him (and thus weakening Robb's position) or just being his usual self? I
can't decide.

Was that the first time Cersei ever admitted to Tyrion that Jaime was Joffrey's father?

Just like Arya, Bran and Rickon (in some combination) now inadvertently have blood on their hands, thanks to a few errant walnut shells.

Speaking of, I love that Hodor just cracked the shells in his bare hands.

How I Met Your Mother: Good Crazy

As penultimate episodes go, this wasn't too bad, largely masking the obvious setup for the season finale with a lot of good Barney antics and the payoff to the "Marshall and Barney in Atlantic City" tease from the season's second episode (and I had totally forgot that we knew from that episode that this was when Lily would go into labor, so I was even mildly surprised by that). That Ted's relationship with Robin has become his character's main arc for the season kind of snuck up on me, and while his picturing her everywhere was a bit much (he had an easier time getting over back in season three after they had actually broke up), it effectively moved him back to where he and Robin can be friends again (she is, after all, Aunt Robin to his kids), depending on how the events of the season finale turn out.

Other Thoughts
Barney's growing issues with Quinn are making it almost too obvious that he won't be marrying her in the future.

The joke about how Barney thought Grandma Lois was talking about Quinn being a stripper was painfully obvious. I did enjoy the bit about how no one puts Quinn in a cage except cardboard ones on Cage Night, though. ("Thanks for ruining Cage Night.")

Barney's fake online dating profile was classic (we actually paused the screen to check it out in more detail - it was pretty great).

Marshall being so drunk he needed subtitles was also a great gag.

Lily: Babies aren’t so hard; you just watch ‘em be cute and feed ‘em spaghetti!

Glee: Saturday Night Glee-ver

Say this for Glee: it usually evokes a reaction. Whether because it manages to effectively depict a moment of genuine teen angst or because it's awful beyond belief, most episodes of this show leave you feeling something. Glee is rarely a "meh" kind of show. This, then, is one of those rare exceptions. Maybe it's because I'm not that much of a Saturday Night Fever (or disco) fan, or maybe it's because the main crux of the plot wasn't that ridiculous (I mean, the whole "Finn/Mercedes/Santana need to decide what to do with their lives" bit was a case of "too little, too late", realistically speaking, but was pretty tame by Glee's standards), but for whatever reason, this one had little impact on me. That happens with a lot of shows, but it seems especially odd with this one.

Which isn't to say this was a bad episode; rather, it was one of the better ones this season. The "what do we do after we graduate?" theme that's been running through the season has been one of the show's strongest, and it takes center stage in this episode. When it wants to be, Glee is very good at presenting what it felt like to be a teenager, when the world was full of potential and yet kinda scary and you felt everything with so much intensity. Finn deciding to become an actor after watching Saturday Night Fever was pretty ridiculous, but definitely worked within the show's aesthetic. It seemed like exactly the kind of thing a kid like Finn would do. The scene between him and Will, in which Finn declared his desire to just freeze time at the age of eighteen, had a lot of resonance, and was one of the best scenes of the season (Will's reaction to Finn was especially well-played; a rare bit of subtlety from Mathew Morrison).

Unfortunately, Glee has just trained us to expect such spectacle, be it good or bad, that an even-keeled episode dealing with one of the show's strongest themes doesn't stand out the way one of the train wreck or big sweeping performance episodes do. Still, I'd love to see more of the Glee on display in this episode than the other kind, even if it doesn't inspire a huge reaction.

Other Thoughts
I love a good pun, but that episode title is painful.

Where the heck was Quinn?

Apparently that clip of Neil Patrick Harris yelling "jean jackets" was new and not recycled from his season one episode.

Jesse's back, and it appears he will serve as the villain for the rest of the season. Which is really where he's belonged for a long time. Hopefully they still find ways to let him sing.

Stuff I Shouldn't Worry About: None of these kids, who clamor for fame and/or success in showbiz, have ever thought to put one of their performances on YouTube before? Really? I'm not even part of that generation and it seems like an obvious thing to do. Also, how did Unique keep her performance plans a secret from Jesse, when clearly every other member of Vocal Adrenaline had to be in on it? And it seems beyond ridiculous that Sue/Brittany could apply to college in Santana's name, let alone that Santana could both get in AND receive a full scholarship without ever auditioning, or talking to someone at the school. or even signing her name on something

Favorite Song: Like I said, few of these songs resonate for me personally, even though most of them were well performed. I'll go with "Boogie Shoes", one of the songs off the album I enjoy above others (thanks mainly to Sports Night).

Santana: Just like I’m a thousand percent sure that our man-child of a
piano player keeps a petitie Asian locked in a trunk underneath his bed.

Sue: Look at Brittany. Her chagrin is limited only by the fact that she has a brain the size of a toddler’s fist.

Sue: Maybe you can get a business degree, open up a…taco truck? I’m still somewhat confused about your ethnicity.

Saturday Night Live: Eli Manning & Rihanna

This was a boring episode. Eli Manning wasn't great, not that anyone expected him to be, but he wasn't awful either. He did what was asked of him and got out of the way of the cast, which is fine, but not very exciting. Lindsay Lohan wasn't a great host, but at least she was bad in an entertaining way. Similarly, for whatever reason, this episode seemed to be filled with sketches that were neither terribly good nor terrible, and I hard time not reaching for the remote and/or checking Twitter throughout.

Cold Open: The Fox & Friends parody is a reliable laugh getter, and this one was no exception. Nothing groundbreaking, but one of the better sketches of the night. And, as usual, lots of freeze frame fun.

Monologue: Manning acquitted himself as well as can be expected, a bit awkward but still funny and mercifully, not too long.

Amazon.com Mother's Day Commercial: Probably the highlight of the episode, with the variations on the theme keeping the one joke from becoming stale.

Motion Capture: Enough funny bits here and there (like the return of Taran Killam's Tim Tebow, and Manning's grenade toss) but nothing too memorable either, and it went on a bit long.

The Courtroom: Another one joke sketch dragged out far too long. Manning defining "kewl" as opposed to "cool" was funny enough, but again, not enough to justify the running time.

United Way Ad: Manning's best work of the night, and a great counterpoint to Peyton's United Way ad from his hosting gig. In addition to the humor derived from helping little brothers get even, there was a lot of fun stuff in the various antics he pulled.

Herb Welch: The quintessential recurring sketch that isn't bad enough to hate or good enough to enjoy. It's basically one joke, sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's not, it follows the same beats every time, etc.

Weekend Update: Kristin Wiig's impression of the tanning mom was like everything else in this episode: fine but not terribly funny. Sasha Baron Cohen was great however, especially after he dragged out Martin Scorsese.

What Is This?: Nice to see Abby Elliot headline a sketch, one of the better ones of the night.

Helga Lately: I probably should have liked this one more than I did, because fake stereotypical Swedish accents always crack me up, but this still had a hard time keeping my attention and felt overly long. I wouldn't mind seeing it again though, to give it another chance.

Miss Drag World: The usual "we have an athlete hosting so let's dress him in drag because that's always funny" sketch. I'm pretty sure we fast forwarded through the end of this one.

Cheech and Chong on TCM: I usually love it when Jason Sudeikis shows up as Robert Osborne, but this one was brutal, the worst sketch of the night, and it seemed never ending. Maybe I'm just not enough of a Cheech and Chong fan?

Favorite Sketch: Gonna go with the Mother's Day commercial. That's the one that's stuck with me the most.

Episodes Featuring a Game Show: 6/20Episodes with a Monologue Featuring a Song: 7/20

14 comments:

Haha! How great was that - little freak needs that to happen to him on a regular basis.

I haven't read the books so I have no idea why it is Sandor (you can tell I have a crush on him now that I've stopped using The Hound) tells Cersei about Sansa's menarche. He has gone out of his way to protect her and he knows what this terrible news means... so why did he hurry it along? And just how did he know the minute she got her period? What is he The... wait for it... Bloodhound? Why was he there, randomly, like 1 minute after whatsherface left? How much do we hate Theon! What a weasel, a louse, a coward. Hate him maybe even more that Joffrey because at least Joffrey has the excuse of being an inbred psychopath. Theon has no excuse, he's just weak. Really liked Cersei's scenes this last week - it's easy to dismiss her as gross and mean and incompetent, so it was um, good? (that sounds weird) to see her love for her... twin and her vulnerability and guilt about her monster child. Loved Tyrion in this scene as well, she probably would have shoved him away again, and he was smart enough to know this, but it was nice to see how good-to-the-core Tyrion is.

Love GOT as usual. Pretty worried that since there's only 2 episodes left, that the body count may start rising.

We pretty much couldn't stand the Glee-ver episode, mostly because we really can't stand Disco. Outside of that, like you said, the episode was blah. I actually forgot all about it until you mentioned it here.

I really hope Theon gets what's coming to him. I don't think he killed Bran and Rickon there, especially since earlier in the episode they saw two orphan boys at that very farm... plus if he did, I really don't think there's any coming back from something so despicable. Executing Ser Roderick was pretty awful, but at least he was a warrior refusing to submit to Theon. Bran and Rickon are just kids, and almost Theon's brothers, at that.

Also, I want to see Tyrion slap Joffrey as often as possible. I think they should stick into the "Previously..." segment at the start of every episode whether it's needed or not.

Also, I loved the Eli Manning courtroom sketch. My favorite part was his verbalizing "hehe".

@Matt: Bran and Rickon are just kids, and almost Theon's brothers, at that.

That's what really bugs me about Theon: yes, he was used as a hostage by Ned Stark, but it was his dad (the one he's so desperate to impress) who rebelled, who gave him to Ned. And since then, he's been raised alongside Robb, Bran, etc. as one of Ned's kids, so it isn't like he lived some terrible life of servitude and suffering at the hands of the Starks.

I'm not saying it's a great situation for Theon, but it seems like his allegiances are just all kinds of screwed up.

I think they should stick into the "Previously..." segment at the start of every episode whether it's needed or not.

Agreed.

Also, I loved the Eli Manning courtroom sketch. My favorite part was his verbalizing "hehe".

It definitely had its funny moments. Just felt like it was a tad long.

@Teebore Concerning Ygritte: no that isn't how it happened in the book. I am still curious to see how the show deals with the difference because the change could potentially mess with things. My guess is the show wanted more season 2 Ygritte so they had to find a way to give her more screen time, but in doing so messed with a nice sequence of events.

Kind of getting annoyed at the holes the show is creating by making the story more likable to the TV structure. Fine, change things, but don't be sloppy about it. Not that I'm bothered in the big picture. A nearly perfect adaption with a few holes is better than a lot of worse possibilities

Kind of getting annoyed at the holes the show is creating by making the story more likable to the TV structure.

Though, in the show's defense, you don't yet know how they'll address the holes they're creating. I mean, I can understand you being worried about it, but maybe they'll end up dealing with the holes just fine. You never know.

I'm not gonna repeat everything I said about this ep over at Nik's — mostly because we've moved a few chapters ahead in the story as of tonight — but I wrote the following specifically in response to earlier comments here before posting it there first:

"I made some apologies on behalf of Theon after his return home, postulating that he was either just playing along with his family until he could get back to the Starks' side (literally and figuratively) or, more likely, simply accepting discretion as the better part of what passes for valor — not sending that note after deciding that the raven would be intercepted, say, and he was no good to anybody dead or jailed at Pyke.

"You can forget all that. Schmuck!"

Game of Thrones: A Man without Honor

I no longer want Robb to come kick his ass; now I want Bran to do it.

I want Hodor to do it.

"Hodor!""Ow!""Hodor!""Ow!""Hodor!""Ow!"

Warlock Dean Pelton

You keep saying that, and it's funny, but I've thought of him from the start as a cross between Count Orlock from Noseratu and a Star Trek: TNG alien.

Both the Cersei scenes did a lot to further add some dimension to her character.

I agree, with great surprise.

Okay, Ygritte is my favorite character on the series. (It doesn't hurt that she's Emma Stone with a Liverpool accent.)

Maester Luwin: "So far hunting seems a lot like riding, milord."

How I Met Your Mother: Good Crazy

I did enjoy the bit about how no one puts Quinn in a cage except cardboard ones on Cage Night, though.

Me too. I typed up the whole thing.

Quinn: "Barney — If I took this job, you would ownme... I would be willingly stepping into a cage, which is something I don't do — except for Thursdays, when it's cage night at The Lusty Leopard, but that's a cardboard cage and I can get out of it anytime I want."

When it wants to be, Glee is very good at presenting what it felt like to be a teenager, when the world was full of potential and yet kinda scary and you felt everything with so much intensity.

I agree. I'm also with you that the episode was a bit of a "meh" hodgepodge, which is strange considering that it did have a theme — both in terms of music and in terms of plot. Yet I liked a lot of the lines (as you'll see) and some of the forward motion of the overall storyline too.

Case in point: Is it just me, or does having Will and Sue work together kind-of, well, work? [And that's not even a spoiler for the rest of the season; I wrote it during the episode.]

I love a good pun, but that episode title is painful.

No kidding. It's not so bad it's good or even so bad it's bad, really; it's just dumb. A good rule of thumb is that if you have to resort to a hyphen, you're trying too hard; maybe it'd work once out loud, but in print it lingers and its deficiencies are too apparent.

What's Up with That? Dept.: I usually love Santana but her rendition of "If I Can't Have You" (a big guilty-pleasure nostalgia song for me) was surprisingly lackluster and she was singing just a split-second behind the beat in a really distracting way.

Will: "I feel like I'm out of ideas."Sue: "Let's be honest, William — You've been out of ideas since Madonna Week. Why don't you just embrace that horribly treacly style of teaching and assign them a famous album?"Will: "I did that last year."Sue: "Yes, I remember, William, and your Rumours Week was a resounding success in that it seemed to solve everyone's problems for about five minutes."

Santana: "The only difference is that I am a thousand percent sure that I am actually going to be famous, just like I'm a thousand percent sure that our man-child piano player keeps a petite Eurasian locked in a trunk underneath his bed."

I not only love that line but the expression on MCPP's face, which I'd lay even odds could either be "What the f--- am I doing here?" or "How the f--- did she know that?" I'd give Sue's Grundy line the edge dialogue-wise, but this one wins on the reaction shot.

Finn: "I mean, I did one of those quizzes online that are supposed to tell you what job you'd be good at and my results were 'competitive-eating champion'."

Wouldn't the Finn established by the show be really stoked to think he has a future as one of those?

Brittany: "Now that we just got your boob in the door, we can't rest. I came up with an idea that will make you, like, Snooki famous, but without all the blackout drinking."

Brittany: "Or... this is my favorite one... you can eat that. It's a bull testicle. I drove allll the way to Spencerville to get it. It came with a pair, but I got hungry on the way home. It tastes just like a chicken testicle."

Sue: "And look at poor Brittany. Her chagrin is limited only by the fact that she has a brain the size of a toddler's fist."Brittany: (to Santana) "I can show you the MRI."

We clearly had a lot of the same favorite lines, but I was more thorough — okay, went overboard — in what I typed up.

... Okay. I've seen some pretty weird CAPTCHAs today, including a word in all caps with a period and one with a comma followed that was then "cubed" — although, thankfully, I just had to type the 3 normal rather than figure out how to superscript it in the little box. Now there's an upside-down word, though, which is just all kinds of weird.

I'll take your word that that was the highlight. I didn't jot anything down during the episode and have no recollection of this at all, which is weird since I tend to like the fake ads (going all the way back to Spud Beer in 1975).

Maybe I should look it up online.

United Way Ad: Manning's best work of the night,

Yeah, I think so too.

The only really memorable moments for me were Martin Scorsese; What Is This?, because it's fun to see characters that are more "real-world" or crazy but not in a zany way; Helga Lately just for the sheer weirdness of it, even though I agree with you that it didn't quite acquit itself on the pure humor as much as it did on the admirable strangeness; and my incredulousness at Rihanna presenting (as they say in the stripper trade, or at least parodies thereof on TV) her nether regions during a song that I don't remember otherwise.

Is it just me, or does having Will and Sue work together kind-of, well, work?

It really does. I hope they maintain that dynamic into next season. I like Sue so much more as an abrasive teacher than a super-villain.

Wouldn't the Finn established by the show be really stoked to think he has a future as one of those?

I hadn't thought of it before, but yeah, at least one of the Finn's established by the show would be stoked by that idea. But not the more serious Finn that's been on display in the second half of this season.

Now there's an upside-down word, though, which is just all kinds of weird.

I think we both know better than to expect logic from Blogger at this point...

Maybe I should look it up online.

Definitely worth a look, especially if you have any opinions on Fifty Shades of Grey.